Dr. Fawcett’s career has been devoted to research on and treatment of affective disorders and suicide prevention. He is a principal investigator of the Recurrent Depression Prevention with Medication and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy project, a five-year NIMH study which is being conducted at Rush Medical College in collaboration with investigators at Vanderbilt University and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Fawcett helped found the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association (now the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance), which created and presented him with the Dr. Jan Fawcett Humanitarian Award. Among his efforts to help educate the public on mental illness, he is a co-author of the book “New Hope for People with Bipolar Disorder.” He is also the Chair of the Mood Disorders Workgroup and a member of the Task Force for DSM-V.

Before assuming his current post, Dr. Fawcett worked for 30 years at Rush Medical College in Chicago, where he was Stanley Harris, Sr. Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry.